wifi only in recovery mode

Hello All,

I have noticed that on my Macbook Pro (2012) My wifi is no longer configured. After the Catalina upgrade I noticed the wifi symbol was greyed out but I continued to have wifi so I didn't think much of it. I then replaced my router with an Xfinity Xfi router. I kept the same password and network name. Now no wifi at all and I cannot add wifi in system preferences. It just doesn't take. I can add or remove any other option but not wifi. At first wifi worked in safe boot but no longer. It does work in recovery mode. I have turned off the firewall, uninstalled a few apps although there was nothing wonky on there other than zoom and facebook.

Here is what makes it even more weird. I took my computer to school today and it picked up the schools wifi through the Thunderbolt bridge is that at all normal? The status was "some connected"

Any advise or help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

gabby